


Hypocritical Equality

by Myra_Bones



Series: Calm before the Cyclone [2]
Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Grateful Cyclone, Minor Angst but not for long, Not walter o'brien friendly, Paige dineen & toby curtis friendship, Platonic Cuddling, Puppy Toby Curtis, protective paige, upset toby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27794830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myra_Bones/pseuds/Myra_Bones
Summary: Her chair made a creaking noise from the force it was pushed away with as she stood and the rhythmic tapping was replaced by sharp steps towards the other side of the garage. Walter looked up at her with a questioning look. “Yes, Paige? Is there something I can do for you?”“You can tell me why you don’t consider me part of the team.”---Paige sees that Toby's upset after one too many 'lowest IQ on the team' comments from Walter. She decides to tear Walter a new one for it and tell him just what being equal means.
Relationships: Toby Curtis & Paige Dineen
Series: Calm before the Cyclone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033512
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Hypocritical Equality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dS_Tiff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dS_Tiff/gifts), [pamz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pamz/gifts).



The heel on her right foot had been tapping the same rapid rhythm on the floor underneath her desk for about fifteen minutes now. Happy had been shooting her frustrated looks for ten of those, and even Sly had looked her way when it had broken his concentration. Why that broke his concentration when the usual noise didn’t seem to bother him, she’d have to find out later. Neither of the two geniuses were what was currently occupying her mind. 

Walter either hadn’t noticed her, or wasn’t yet bothered enough by it to comment. She’d have put good money on it being the latter, if she’d been a betting woman. 

The thought made her eyes go back over to the last genius in the room. Toby was sitting at his desk with his headphones on, two books occupying the space in front of him. It all seemed quite normal for him, but she was now convinced it was quite far from. 

Either Walter had miraculously convinced Toby to finally keep his music down, or the lack of sound coming from the earphones indicated he’d never put any on. She’d watched the lights on them flicker off ten minutes ago, confirming her suspicions. That made it all the more miraculous he hadn’t commented on her fidgeting yet. He was usually the first to dive onto anything he could potentially lock onto his area of expertise. She  _ might _ have been convinced he was simply engrossed in his books - except he hadn’t turned a single page in either one ever since he’d sat down a little over twenty minutes ago. 

Happy brought some kind of tool down on some kind of metal with a hard  _ clang! _ , and Paige decided that was all the warning she was going to get for Happy’s patience. Not that it mattered, because hers had been running out just as steadily. 

Her chair made a creaking noise from the force it was pushed away with as she stood and the rhythmic tapping was replaced by sharp steps towards the other side of the garage. She stood in front of the desk with her arms crossed until even the most stubborn of geniuses couldn’t feign ignorance anymore. 

Walter looked up at her with a questioning look belaying far too much innocence. “Yes, Paige? Is there something I can do for you?”

“You can tell me why you don’t consider me part of the team.”

The sounds of Happy forcing metal into shape stopped instantly, and behind her she could’ve sworn she heard several pieces of chalk fall to the floor and break. Out of the corner of her eyes, she did see Toby lower his books to unabashedly watch them. Knowing the extent to which one sentence could pull the focus of three of the world’s sharpest minds was almost as satisfying as seeing Walter flounder in the face of her sudden hostility. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Walter said eventually, having pulled himself together and rising to his feet. “You know you’re an integral part of the way we work.” She could hear in his voice both the confusion and the desire to placate her rising anger. 

Unfortunately for him, this wasn’t something he could soothe as easily as other things. “You keep saying you ‘geniuses’ only deal in facts. Well, the fact is, from what I’ve been hearing all morning, either you don’t consider me - or Cabe, for that matter - a part of the team-” She held up her hand to stop the already budding interruption. “Or your estimation of my IQ must’ve risen by 55 points, minimum. And while I’d love to believe the latter, even I’m smart enough to know better than to bet on that.”

Walter kept that same puzzled and mildly uncomfortable look on his face. She wasn’t quite sure whether his sincere lack of understanding was better or worse than insincerity would’ve been. She was mostly convinced Happy and Sly, at least, understood the message. The utterly shocked expression taking over Toby’s face left no doubt there.

She waited for Walter to understand for what she deemed as far too long before giving the explanation with a sound of frustration stuck in her throat. “In the past two hours alone,” she stressed. “I’ve heard you declare an IQ of 170 to be the lowest on Team Scorpion a grand total of four times.”

Her meaning behind the confrontation sank in at that moment. She could see it in his eyes, and the way he seemed to sag a bit in the chair. “You know I don’t mean to exclude you when I say that,” he said, apparently thinking that would calm her down. “And Toby does have the lowest IQ on the team. That’s still a fact.”

She didn’t notice how hard she’d been clenching her jaw until the muscles around it began to ache. Judging from the look on Walter’s face, some of her fury must’ve gotten through to him by now. 

“So we’re introducing each other based on facts now?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s good to know. I’ll be sure to introduce you to everyone we meet as Walter O’Brien, hypocritical asshole.”

“Hypocritical? Paige, you are-”

“Don’t even try to deny it.” At any other time, she would’ve been proud at getting the supposedly fourth-smartest person ever to shut up like a misbehaving toddler. Now, it hardly registered. “You started Scorpion as a place for people who didn’t fit in the outside world. Geniuses, like you. You keep telling everyone who will hear that this is a place where you can be equal, and not be treated the way you’ve always been. Except that supposes equality disappears the moment you can put yourself above others.”

Walter opened his mouth as if to protest, but no sound came out. She waited for a moment before shaking her head in disappointment. 

“Try to think about that, Walter. According to your ideals, IQ and EQ shouldn’t matter within these walls. Within Team Scorpion,  _ everyone _ is treated equally.” She headed back to her desk to grab her handbag before turning back to him. “Not just me and Cabe. Not just Toby. If you care even half as much about Scorpion, about the sanctuary you’ve always proclaimed it to be, as you always say you do, try to get this in your head. You are just as important as everyone else on the team. Not less, but  _ certainly _ not more.”

His eyes followed her as she walked to the door of the garage. Some vindictive sense within her caused her to turn around for one last remark. “And lording your IQ over others while pretending you’re providing them with a safe space? That makes you worse than the bullies you’re in here hiding from.”

\---

Paige had just settled in for a relaxing, child-free evening of trash tv and alcohol when the doorbell interrupted the peace. A moment later her phone buzzed. She stubbornly ignored both. 

When her phone buzzed a second time she picked it up with a scowl, ready to tear Walter apart again if he was bothering her without an actual world-threatening event. 

_ I’m not 197, _ read the first text, and she couldn’t help but smile a bit as she checked the sender.  _ I brought dessert. _

She rolled her eyes even as she stood up to open the front door to greet a grinning Toby. He held out a chocolate cake that looked as though it contained enough calories to get her through a full month. 

“You know the peace offering wasn’t necessary,” she pointed out. “Don’t know if you noticed, but you’re the only one I wasn’t even a bit annoyed at today.” She held out the door for him to enter nevertheless. Necessary or not, she’d be insane to deny him entry with that to offer. 

Toby chuckled and walked in, placing the cake on a nearby table and turning around to hug her close. She let out a sound of surprise but leaned into it with a chuckle. “That’s exactly why I brought the cake,” the genius said as he held her close. There was a raw undertone to his voice that made Paige hold him tighter for a moment until he let go. 

Even for a world-renowned behaviorist, he seemed… vulnerable. It was odd to see him anything less than completely sure of himself. She realized in that moment she’d never seen him out of his element. 

“One condition,” she said slowly, making sure to get his attention before allowing the grin to spread. “You help me with that cake.”

A laugh burst out of him in surprise, though Paige didn’t miss the hint of relief in his eyes either. “Sure thing.”

Paige appointed him to cut the cake while she went back to zapping through the seemingly-endless list of channels and streaming platforms that had decided to appear on her tv. Toby looked on in amusement when he joined her with two plates balanced on one arm and two glasses of wine in the other hand. 

“So, I’m guessing you’ve never told Walter what decision fatigue is?” she said sarcastically after passing New Channel #156. She was pretty sure most of these also featured the same shows, just during different times. 

A chuckle accompanied the slice of cake that he handed her. She accepted it with a grateful smile. “You’re thinking of choice overload,” he pointed out. Paige noticed that, unlike Walter, he didn’t say it in a way to draw attention to him being right. He said it just to say it. “And I think this one is on Happy. Walter was still sulking last time we saw him.”

“Happy?” She blinked at him with a confused frown. It only took a moment before it cleared into understanding. “That’s why Sly volunteered to take Ralph to some new show at the Observatory!”

Toby nodded, settling next to her with a soft grin. “Exactly. Your speech today left quite the impression. And you know us, especially Happy. Feelings don’t always come out in the most normal of ways.” He shrugged even as he said it. Just as Paige knew that, he did, too - more often than not, that was the least of their problems. 

“Like chocolate cake as thank you,” she tested slowly, trying to fit the puzzle pieces in her mind. It sort of felt like fitting together two different puzzles. “So Happy and Sylvestor feel the need to help me out? Why? I wasn’t yelling at them, if anything I interrupted their work.”

The look Toby gave her made her simultaneously feel small, as if she was grasping right past a point, and far stronger than she was. “That was their chocolate cake,” he told her. “Paige… People don’t often stand up for us. Far less often if that means going up against 197 of all people. And you did it without anyone having to tell you something was wrong. We might not be any good with EQ, but even we don’t let something like that go unacknowledged.”

She felt her cheeks heat up a bit and gave a small shrug, focusing on the chocolate cake in her hands. “I appreciate it. But I was just doing what any friend would do. Walter was behaving like an ass.” She waited until she felt her blush was under control before allowing herself to look up again. “Taking care of the team emotionally is my job, after all. Assuming I’ve still got a job and Walter doesn’t fire me through a text message tomorrow morning.”

“Walter can be a lot of things, but outright stupid is not one of them.” His lips twitched. “Happy told him that if he tried to fire you, he’d be out his entire crew and every piece of equipment not built into the floor or walls themselves.”

“She did what? Why?! Scorpion is her home. It’s home to all of you guys, you can’t threaten to leave just cause of me!” She bit her lip nervously, images of her outburst causing Scorpion to fall out flashing in her mind. Sly back to looting from banks and Toby back to being beaten up in casinos. She couldn’t have that on her conscience. “What if he calls the bluff?”

“It’s not a bluff, Paige.” One arm moved around her to hold her close, rubbing her side soothingly. She felt herself relax a bit, whether it was at his voice, completely calm and at peace, or the contact. “We’d all be fine without Scorpion, if we had to. And we’d much rather lose a job than a friend.” 

Paige couldn’t stop a smile from escaping at his words. “Well,” she said eventually. “Let’s hope Walter comes to his senses and no one will lose anything beyond the pride he left behind today.”

“Let’s.” Toby eyed her a moment to see if she was okay before smoothly stealing the remote out of her hand and ignored her indignant yelp. “You snooze, you lose!” He held it high up for her and gave a teasing wink. 

Paige got the remote back without too much trouble as soon as she discovered a ticklish spot in his side and leaned back against him while she went back to checking out the many new channels she apparently had a mechanic to thank for, Toby’s arm a comforting presence around her shoulders. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for everyone who is so encouraging! Special thanks to Pamz and dS_Tiff for their welcoming attitude! ^^


End file.
